European Union regulators for its 8.1 billion U.S. dollars acquisition of Navteq
Corp, the world's largest digital map maker, sources said Friday.
The European Commission expressed no opposition to
the merger at a meeting last week, the sources, who requested anonymity because
the discussions aren't public, told Bloomberg News.
Regulators found there was robust competition in the
market for personal navigation devices, they said.
The case would be the second acquisition of a digital
map making company cleared by the EU this year.
Earlier this month regulators approved plans by
TomTom NV, Europe's biggest maker of car-navigation devices, to buy Navteq rival
Tele Atlas NV for 2.9 billion euros (4.5 billion dollars).
"The reasons to block TomTom-Tele Atlas are the same
for Nokia-Navteq," said Richard Windsor, a mobile phone analyst at Nomura
Securities in London.
"If they've let through TomTom-Tele Atlas, I can't
see why they'd block Nokia-Navteq."
Espoo, Finland-based Nokia, the world's largest
mobile-phone maker, agreed to buy Chicago-based Navteq In October to add maps to
its products and compete with TomTom and Garmin Ltd.
Nokia expects to hear from the commission by the
August 8 deadline, spokesman Kari Tuutti said. He declined to comment further.
Jennifer Schuh, a Navteq spokeswoman, didn't
immediately return messages seeking comment. Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd
declined to comment.
Shipments up
Global mobile-phone shipments probably will increase
12 percent to 1.26 billion units this year, said Bonny Joy, an analyst at
Boston-based researcher Strategy Analytics.
Garmin has predicted that prices for navigation gear
will fall by 20 percent this year as competition intensifies and phone makers
such as Nokia add navigation to their devices.
The commission, the EU's antitrust regulator in
Brussels, is scheduled to rule on the Nokia-Navteq deal by August 8.
Nokia had the largest share of the mobile-phone
market in the first quarter with 39.1 percent, compared with Samsung Electronics
Co's 14.4 percent and Motorola Inc's 10.2 percent, Stamford, Connecticut-based
researcher Gartner Inc said in a statement last Wednesday.
(Source: Shanghaidaily.com)
